22nd Apr BANYULS SUR MER – PORT LA NOUVELLES

Another slightly hairy journey, along the windy, high up road, to a free aire at Port La Nouvelles. All Sat Nav’s routes these days seem to be along roads with prostitutes lining them (or there are masses of prostitutes in Europe?); we saw a whole load more today.

Just before we entered the town we passed through salt marshes where we saw big flocks of Flamingos, unfortunately there was absolutely nowhere to stop to take photos.

The aire was huge, with spaces for 100 vans – there must have been at least 50 when we arrived, practically all French (naturally) and one English; but it was awfully quiet, hardly any sign of life.

After lunch we walked into the town; Port La Nouvelles is a grim little place, the road leading into the town is lined with massive gas storage tanks and the town itself has no ‘curb appeal’! As it was Sunday none of the shops were open; there was a dog accessory shop called ‘Doggy Style’ – I’m sure they thought it meant styling for dogs!!! And a few fishmongers, a pizza parlour and a couple of Tabac shops; there were no people around apart from some fishermen and a few people coming out of a Church. We did find an open bar, but as there were no people about to ‘people watch’ we weren’t tempted to stop. On the wall, outside one of the Tabac shops,  was a ‘Durex’ machine (I’ve never seen one outside of a public toilet or pub before) maybe it was for the ‘ladies of the road’ or their clients?